Bellman Ground Farm House Storrs Park, Bowness on Windermere Bellman Ground is a grade 2 listed farm house dating back to the 18 th Century. The building contains three receptions, six bedrooms and two bathrooms, with extensive outbuildings and grounds. The house contained many original features, and the new owner wished to be as sympathetic to the building as possible. We installed 32kw Worcester- Bosch oil boiler and unvented hot water cylinder in one of the outbuildings, connecting to the house with Uponor pre insulated quad pipe. This consisted of two heating pipes and a hot water return pipe. The ground floor of the property required specialist drainage, digging down to almost a metre. The obvious solution was to heat the ground floor with a wet underfloor heating, using a Multipipe system. The original flagged and wooden flooring were carefully lifted and re-installed to accommodate the UFH, with the first floor being heated with old style column radiators. The property carries its own water supply, which required us to install a water treatment plant in one of the outbuildings. The whole system is controlled with Heatmiser s Neo thermostats and Neo Hub meaning the owner can control the system using their smart phone, even switching the heating on when geo location recognises you re approaching home.
Whasdyke farm Ings Whasdyke farm is a traditional Lakeland farmhouse dating from the 17 th century and grade 2 listed. The current owner and our client has renovated it extensively since purchasing the property but it became apparent that the cost of heating both the farm house and outbuildings using the existing oil fired boiler was becoming quite expensive. The solution was to install a Viessman Vitoligno 40kw boiler, recommended for its quality, intelligence and reliability. The wood pellet boiler was situated in a new building down on the farmyard which is connected to the main house using 25m of Uponor pre insulated pipe to carry the heat to the house. We also installed ducted electrical cable for controlling the boiler from the farm house. The boiler and associated equipment is all connected with copper pipework and mechanically supported with metallic bracketry, all pipework is insulated with Isover Mineral Wool Insulation to ensure a lifetime s longevity. In the farmhouse we installed a constant temperature circuit to heat the new 210 litre pressurised hot water tank. This allowed the removal of all the old water storage from the loft areas, with a mixed temperature circuit for the heating system, which consists of radiators. The system is easily and simply controlled from a remote Vitotrol 300 A weather compensated controller in the farmhouse. The boiler is also connected to Viessmann s data communication system via a Vitocom 200. This allows our client to control his system from his smart phone, he will also be alerted should a fault occur. Our client is very happy with his system, with minimal fuel costs and with RHI scheme, the project will have paid for itself in 5 years.
Low House Farm Newlands Valley, Keswick The brief was to heat the main house and adjoining two bed annex with an Ariterm Scandinavian 40kW boiler, hot water and fuel store located in the old shippen, adjacent to the main house, using a biomass boiler and underfloor heating throughout. Being so remote in the Newlands Valley, the site had tight access, so before any work could begin, a feasibility study was arranged with the pellet delivery company to establish if delivery of wood pellets could be achieved. Once confirmed, we undertook a full system design. Four manifolds were used to distribute the UFH pipes, with a variety of solutions to accommodate this sympathetic build. On the first floor, in order to preserve the original boards, we decided to install the underfloor pipework from below using heat emitter plates to help spread the heat and, wishing to have some form of mass in the floors we worked with the builders to create plywood trays lined with a thin sheet of Triso Multifoil insulation, filled with a screed and pushed tightly under the pipes and fixed into position. We and the client are very happy with the installation and think it will be much more efficient than just having insulation under the pipes. For the ground floor UFH the floors were dug out and a drainage system installed by the builders, on top of which was laid Glapor recycled foamed glass gravel as this has high thermal properties, with a final layer of reinforcing bar grid with a membrane on top. Our underfloor pipework was then attached. A Limecrete floor was then poured on top of this and the final covering will be the original stone floor slabs.
The first floor UFH was different again. In the annex, the client wished to keep the bare joists and underside of floor boards to be on show so another floor was built on top of the existing floor. This also helped to level out some very wonky floors. Where the floor was out of level Kingspan was used and on the new level floor areas the Multifoil insulation was again used. Pipe was laid on the floor and a thin layer of weak sand and cement screed was laid on top of that. New solid oak floor boards have been commissioned as the final flooring. The annex ground floor is a more standard make up with Kingspan insulation laid on top of a slap, pipes which were laid with a screed on top of that. Stone slabs will be the final floor covering. The annex hot and cold water and heating system is connected to the boiler room with continuous non jointed pipework in ducts below the floors. Water treatment equipment was also installed in the boiler room, comprising of an iron and manganese reduction filter and UV and sediment filters.
Yorkshire Riding Centre Harrogate We teamed up with renewable energy consultant company, Bio-Nordic to undertake this small district heating scheme at this prestigious and historical site. The project was to replace four old oil boilers and various LPG and electric heaters across site with two 60kw Scandinavian Ariterm wood pellet boilers used to heat the main house, offices, staff and student accommodation, tack rooms, the four bed guesthouse, and two separate lodges. Each building carried varying degrees of heat requirements and demanded a large amount of continually running hot water. The boilers were connected to a 2400 Litre Akvaterm accumulator tank (oval shaped to fit existing building) using screwed steel pipe work. This housed a high flow domestic heating coil to give instantaneous hot water throughout, accommodating the hot water demands as well as the heating requirements.
The pellet store is situated out of site from the entrance, behind the boiler room in a large external Aluzinc Mafa fuel store that is fed via an auger system. In order to connect the boilers to the building we excavated considerable ground around the back of the buildings to accommodate the Rehau Rauthemex pre insulated district heating pipe. A single Grundfos Magna 3 pump circulates heat to all separate areas of heat use. Heat meters were installed on each part of the system with the readings being used for RHI payments. The installation was approved by Ofgem within one month of submission with Ofgem congratulating all parties involved on well-made application. These applications can sometimes take months and months.
Cosy Logs - Ings Our client came to us with a view to install a kiln to dry his own sourced, fresh cut timber using a biomass system to fire it, rather than buying in logs for distribution. We suggested why not specifically a log boiler rather than a pellet boiler as they deal with logs anyway this seemed a perfect choice. Being located in a barn and with heavy machinery and large trees being processed on site a robust basic log gasification boiler seemed to be the answer. The boiler was a polish made 130kw Eco Angus log gasification boiler which is perfectly suited to its operating environment and connected to a 3000 litre Finish made Akvaterm accumulator tank using 2 inch screwed steel pipe. Also a DHW (domestic hot water) coil installed in the accumulator tank to give hot water on site for washing down machinery etc. For the kiln, we used specialist kiln manufacturer Kiln Services Ltd for the supply of a 20 cubic metre log drying kiln who delivered it to site. An Esbe loading valve was installed to maintain return temperature to the boiler of 60 degrees centigrade, this is very important as low return temperature to these type of boilers can cause boilers to condensate and effectively rot the boiler and shorten their life span considerably. The system is designed to run the kiln at 90 degrees centigrade to shorten the log drying times as much as possible, the aim is to get the fresh green logs down to a moisture content of 20 %. Since installation in late 2014 the boiler has run 24/7 apart from the odd service break without any issues. Cosy logs were accepted on the RHI scheme which helps to recover the installation costs. They are already considering expanding the installation as they struggle to keep up with demand.
Windermere Boutique Spa Suites Bowness on Windermere An existing client asked us to install a new heating and hot water system for his latest venture, converting a tired Bed and Breakfast into three, luxurious indulgent suites with large spa bathrooms. Each suite containing a hot tub, rain showers, sauna and relaxation chairs. Although the property hasn t a high heat demand there is a potential for a large hot water consumption, with this in mind we have installed an ACV Smartline 210 litre high flow quick recovery cylinder. Owing to the nature of high occupancy and demand on the boiler we installed a light commercial Vaillant 46kw condensing boiler, capable of reheating the hot water in 17 minutes from 20 degrees C. One Grundfos Magna 3 circulating pump takes care of the system, constantly changing speed and power to give optimum efficiency whether one heating zone is on or all four plus hot water. Each suite has its own heating circuit for optimum control, efficiency and ease of maintenance. We are expecting this very efficient system to have very low running costs.
Mill Yard - Staveley We wanted to heat our own unit with a biomass boiler as a place for clients to view a working installation. Because our premises are relatively small we approached some of our neighbours to see if we could heat their units with our spare boiler capacity. We knew that other buildings on the yard were heating their premises with electricity, which is both expensive and not as sustainable as wood pellets so it was an appealing proposition. We use an Ariterm Scandinavian 20kW boiler with a 450 litre fuel store to heat a large woodworking school workshop and two small commercial offices. Both are within close proximity of our boiler so external pipework was kept to a minimum. Basic Honeywell time and temperature controls are used in their buildings and we use a more intelligent internet control, Heatmiser Neo for our building. This makes sense for us as we are not always in the office so becomes more efficient and we can showcase its features to our clients.